


The Darkest Shadow

by iceyly



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! 5D's
Genre: F/M, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2015-03-04
Updated: 2015-03-04
Packaged: 2018-03-16 09:21:54
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3482906
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iceyly/pseuds/iceyly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Multichapter, AU – Perhaps, hell wasn't such a bad place to stay at.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Darkest Shadow

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, so I'm in the middle of re-watching this series and since I hit 32-35 tonight and ended up with ALL THEM Kiryu and Team Satisfaction-feels, I figured I could go back to this fic, clean up and post it over here. Especially since it's still one of the things I'm most proud of having written. Note though, that this is a story from 10/11 and still fits my writing style from those days.
> 
> So yeah. Welcome to the fic where everyone dies in a fashion?
> 
> Enjoy?
> 
> Also, I should note here that the italics in the beginning of each chapter are absolutely not mine, but borrowed from the novelization of Star Wars: Revenge of the Sith by Matthew Stover. I believe they are rather fitting.

_The dark is generous._

_Its first gift is concealment: our true faces lie in the dark beneath our skins, our true hearts remain shadowed deeper still. But the greatest concealment lies not in protecting our secret truths, but in hiding from us the truths of others._

_The dark protects us from what we dare not know._

_Its second gift is comforting illusion: the ease of gentle dreams in night's embrace, the beauty that imagination brings to what would repel in day's harsh light. But the greatest of its comforts is the illusion that the dark is temporary: that every night brings a new day. Because it is day that is temporary._

_Day is the Illusion._

_Its third gift is the light itself: as days are defined by the nights that divide them, as stars are defined by the infinite black through which they wheel, the dark embraces the light, and brings it forth from the center of its own self._

_With each victory of the light, it is the dark that wins._

* * *

 

It had taken long enough, and as much as Yusei disliked this way of dueling, he isn't about to give up and let Kiryu have his way – not when he'd just finally managed to inflict damage in return, even reduced Kiryu's lifepoints to below a thousand. Yusei had hoped to end the duel with Synchro Destructor but he realized that it was far to optimistic to call for victory the moment he activated the trap.

He knew that, although it seemed that he had finally taken the lead in this duel, especially with Stardust and Scrap-Metal Scarecrow on his field, Kiryu still held far to much cards in his hand (figuratively and literally speaking) to be counted out of the game just yet. Not to mention that the meaning of the one that he had added through the effect of One-Hundred-Eyes Dragon was still unknown, which made it even more dangerous. However he held Speed Spell – Final Attack in his hand, which made him fairly confident to be able to end this insanity the instant his next turn came by.

(And perhaps, so Yusei hoped, just perhaps, like that street duelist Dick Pitt, Kiryu would turn back into the person that he had been before, into the friend he would have done anything for…)

But somehow his gut feeling told him that he wouldn't have a next turn, a feeling that worsened as Kiryu interrupted him to declare the special summoning of his two ghost token and thanked him for adding what he called a Dark Signer's mightiest card to his hand.

Disbelieving he watched as Kiryu laughed and sacrificed his tokens along with the souls of the Satellites, that he and his allies had captured, remorselessly summoning forth a monster unlike any that Yusei had seen before.

It was gigantic and had an aura of malice, and as he watched it rise from the earth Yusei felt true fear gripping him, for the first time in so long. It was even worse than three years ago, when they had watched their world fall apart around them. The fear in him sneaked into his heart and made his mind go almost blank as he saw how the hand of the giant reached for him and heard Kiryu call out for his death.

He tried to stop it, cried out for both Stardust and Scrap-Metal Scarecrow but neither could help, both failed to stop the ever-approaching giant. From afar he heard Kiryu scold him, amused at him for even thinking that this monster – this god – could be stopped by the mere cards of a Signer and from even further away he heard Jack and Crow call his name in concern.

All he could do was to watch the giant's hand approach, slowly yet unbelievingly fast, destroying the ground beneath it. He closed his eyes as the fear in his heart and mind took over, anticipating the strike, and the instant before he took the hit fear turned into hate.

Hate for what Kiryu had become. And even greater hate for Godwin, who sent him back to Satellite as a sacrificial lamb, knowing that Yusei wouldn't stand a chance against the Dark Signers just yet, especially only by himself. Hate for the Crimson Dragon, who was part of him, who had forced this fate upon him.

But between all the hate that felt so foreign yet so right, there was fierce defiance; the will to survive, to live, burning and raging and filling his entire being. Because, even if it was only to spite all the mentioned above (and it wasn't), he did not want to die. Not on like this.

Then the hand reached him and his world disappeared in incomparable pain and darkness as purplish flames consumed him…

* * *

 

His world was pain, endless pain and he wondered if this was what Kiryu had endured, what Kiryu had called hell. But pain was just the tip of the feelings plaguing him. Mostly he felt fear, fear of Kiryu, whom he hadn't been able to match, fear for Crow and Jack, who Kiryu would be after next. And even more intense than pain and fear he felt anger and hate and despair. It shouldn't have ended like this.

Sometimes he started to wish that he would just die and a small piece of him wondered if he wasn't dead already. Yet he tried to keep clinging to the light, forcing himself to remember Jack and Crow, Rally and Taka, Blitz and Nerve and all the fun-times they had had together. But after some time even the memory of the better times wasn't enough anymore to keep darkness and pain at bay and soon he stopped remembering, stopped caring and let the darkness latch onto him. Let it swallow him a whole.

And then he woke up in a dark and unfamiliar place, he was leaning against a cold wall, his right burning painfully, the pain digging into his arm as if to engrave itself onto him, as if to brand him for all its worth.

He gasped, sucking in air, yet it felt like his lungs weren't working… and when he opened his eyes he saw the birthmark glowing in his lap; not in the red that he had become accustomed to, but in blackish purple, like the fake mark on Dick Pitt, like the mark of… Kiryu.

Panic spread through him; what, just what was going on here?

He turned his head and saw his own reflection in the old, dust covered mirror that hung on the wall (the one that he shouldn't have seen by any means in this darkness but did anyway) he wasn't really surprised to see his cobalt blue pupils contrasting with the now black of his eyes.

Shacking slightly, he breathed in deep, drawing air that he actually didn't need anymore, trying to figure out what the hell had happened, how the hell he was going to deal with…

…This power. Because that was, what was now flowing through his veins, throbbing, pulsing, whispering, promising the world and more. Overwhelming him so much; almost making him wonder why he should be afraid of this – it felt so terribly foreign and terribly right at the same time.

"Finally awake, are we?"

His head shot up, immediately meeting Kiryu's amused amber eyes, cutting through the dark like glowing gems. Kiryu, who was sitting on a crate, just a few meters away from him, so closer, far closer than he had been in so long. Kiryu, who's eyes oddly enough didn't hold the look of intense hatred and the promise of pain – in fact if Yusei hadn't known better he would have thought that everything was back the way it had been before… before Signers, before the city, before that night three years ago.

Kiryu, who crooked his head, snickering: "Welcome to hell, Yusei."

And despite still shaking, still being torn between fear and dark pleasure, some part of Yusei couldn't help but point out that if this was hell, then, just perhaps, hell wasn't such a bad place to stay at.

_\- TBC… -_


End file.
